NOTE: The samle research paper or essay prompt you see on this page is a free essay, available to anyone. You can use any paper as a sample on how to write research paper, essay prompts or as a source of information. We strongly discourage you to directly copy/paste any essay and turn it in for credit. If your school uses any plagiarism detecting software, you might be caught and accused of plagiarism. If you need a custom essay or research paper, written from scratch exclusively for you, please use our paid research paper writing service!

Aztec Empire History The Aztec Empire History The
center of the Aztec civilization was the Valley of
Mexico, a huge,oval basin about 7,500 feet above
sea level. The Aztecs were formed afterthe Toltec
civilization occurred when hundreds of civilians
came towards Lake Texcoco. In the swamplands there
was only one piece of land to farm on and it was
totally surrounded by more marshes. The Aztec
families somehow converted these disadvantages to
a mighty empire known as the Aztec Empire. People
say the empire was partially formed by a deeply
believed legend.

As the legend went, it said that
Aztec people would create an empire in a swampy
place where they would see an eagle eating a
snake, while perched on a cactus, which was
growing out of a rock in the swamplands. This is
what priests claimed they saw when entering the
new land. In addition, The mother of the Aztec
creation story was called Coatlique, the Lady of
the Skirt of Snakes. She was created in the image
of the unknown, decorated with skulls, snakes, and
lacerated hands. There are no cracks in her body
and she is a perfect monolith (a totality of
intensity and self-containment, yet her features
were sqaure and decapitated).

Coatlique was first
impregnated by an obsidian knife and gave birth to
Coyolxanuhqui, goddess of the moon, and to a group
of male offspring, who became the stars. Then one
day Coatlique found a ball of feathers, which she
tucked into her bosom. Whe she looked for it
later, it was gone, at which time she realized
that she was again pregnant. Her children, the
moon and stars did not believe her story. Ashamed
of their mother, they resolved to kill her.

A
goddess could only give birth once, to the
original litter of divinity and no more. During
the time that they were plotting her demise,
Coatlicue gave birth to the fiery god of war,
Huitzilopochtli. With the help of a fire serpent,
he destroyed his brothers and sister, murdering
them in a rage. He beheaded Coyolxauhqui and threw
her body into a deep gorge in a mountain, where it
lies dismembered forever. By the year 1325 their
capital city was finished.

They called it
Tenochtitlan. - At its height, the Aztec Empire
included millions of people. Even though no one
knows exactly how many people there were, it seems
clear that the Aztec Empire had a population equal
to the large European countries at the time!
Tenochtitlfin alone, which may have had as many as
200,000 people, was larger than any European city.
Along the shores of Lake Texcoco were other
cities. These cities were connected to
Tenochtitlfin by a system of causeways, or raised
earthen roads, built across the lake. Bridges on
the causeways allowed canoes to go from one part
of the lake to another.

In the capital city,
aqueducts were constructed, bridges were built,
and chinapas were made. Chinapas were little
islands formed by pilled up mud. On these chinapas
Aztecs grew their food. The Aztec Empire included
many cities and towns, especially in the Valley of
Mexico. The early settlers built log rafts, then
covered them with mud and planted seeds to create
roots and develop more solid land for building
homes in this marshy land.

Canals were also cut
out through the marsh so that a typical Aztec home
had its back to a canal with a canoe tied at the
door. In the early 1400s, Tenochtitlan joined with
Texcoco and Tlacopan, two other major cities in
the Valley of Mexico. Good farming practices
helped to support the large population of
Tenochtitln. For example, the Aztecs built
irrigation systems, constructed terraces on nearby
hillsides, and enriched the soil with fertilizer.
They developed a completely new agricultural
technique for making more farmland out of the
swampy land around the city by creating artificial
islands, called chinampas, or floating gardens.
The chinampas were made by piling rich earth from
the bottom of Lake Texcoco onto rafts made of
weeds. After awhile, the roots of plants and trees
grew down to the lake bottom, anchoring the rafts.
These island gardens covered most of the southern
part of the lake and were planted with crops that
produced large amounts of food.

Their crops
included corn, which was their principal crop,
various kinds of vegetables (such as beans,
squash, tomatoes, and peppers), and flowers. The
Aztecs also planted corn and other crops in the
irrigated fields around Lake Texcoco. They raised
ducks, geese and turkeys, which were eaten by the
rich nobles and merchants. They had dogs, but did
not use work animals or plows. Instead, they used
pointed sticks to poke holes for planting seeds in
the soft soil Tenochtitlan became the most
powerful member of the alliance.

The Aztec
Conquerors - The Aztecs carried on constant wars
with neighboring peoples. They fought with wooden
swords that had sharp stone blades. They also used
bows and arrows as well as spears. Their armor was
padded cotton made into suits fitted to the body.
This armor worked well against the weapons of
other Indians. However, it was little protection
against the steel swords, arrows, muskets, and
cannons of the Spaniards.

The main purpose of the
Aztec wars was to capture enemy soldiers so that
thousands could be sacrificed, or offered, to the
gods. Captives were brought to. There they were
led up the steps of a great pyramid on the top of
which stood a temple. In front of the temple stood
the sacrificial altar. While drums boomed, each
unlucky captive was held down on the altar.

The
sharp knife of an Aztec priest flashed in the sun,
and in an instant the victim's chest was opened.
The priest then reached in, grabbed the heart, and
held it aloft for all to see. In this manner, the
Aztecs sacrificed thousands of people each year.
Montezuma I ruled from 1440 to 1469 and conquered
large areas to the east and to the south.
Montezuma's successors expanded the empire until
it extended between what is now Guatemala and the
Mexican State of San Luis Potosi. Montezuma II
became emperor in 1502 when the Aztec Empire was
at the height of its power. In 1519, the Spanish
explorer Hernando Cortes landed on the East Coast
of Mexico and marched inland to Tenochtitlan. The
Spaniards were joined by many of the Indians who
were conquered and forced to pay high taxes to the
emperor.

Montezuma did not oppose Cortes because
he thought that he was the God Quetzalcoatl. An
Aztec legend said that Quetzalcoatlwas driven away
by another rival god and had sailed across the sea
and would return some day. His return was
predicted to come in the year Ce Acatl on the
Aztec Calendar. This corresponded to the year
1519. Due to this prediction, Montezuma II thought
Quetzalcoatl had returned when Cortez and his
troops invaded.

He did not resist and was taken
prisoner by Cortez and his troops. In 1520, the
Aztecs rebelled and drove the Spaniards from
Tenochtitlan, but Montezuma II was killed in the
battle. Cortes reorganized his troops and resurged
into the city. Montezuma's successor, Cuauhtemoc,
surrendered in August of 1520. The Spaniards,
being strong Christians, felt it was their duty to
wipe out the temples and all other traces of the
Aztec religion.

They destroyed Tenochtitlan and
built Mexico City on the ruins. However,
archaeologists have excavated a few sites and have
uncovered many remnants of this society. Language:
The Aztec spoke a language called Nahuatl
(pronounced NAH waht l). It belongs to a large
group of Indian languages, which also include the
languages spoken by the Comanche, Pima, Shoshone
and other tribes of western North America. The
Aztec used pictographs to communicate through
writing.

Some of the pictures symbolized ideas and
others represented the sounds of the syllables.
Food: The principal food of the Aztec was a thin
cornmeal pancake called a tlaxcalli. (In Spanish,
it is called a tortilla.) They used the tlaxcallis
to scoop up foods while they ate or they wrapped
the foods in the tlaxcalli to form what is now
known as a taco. They hunted for most of the meat
in their diet and the chief game animals were
deer, rabbits, ducks and geese. The only animals
they raised for meat were turkeys, rabbits, and
dogs. Arts and Crafts: The Aztec sculptures, which
adorned their temples and other buildings, were
among the most elaborate in all of the Americas.
Their purpose was to please the gods and they
attempted to do that in everything they did.

Many
of the sculptures reflected their perception of
their gods and how they interacted in their lives.
The most famous surviving Aztec sculptureis the
large circular Calendar Stone, which represents
the Aztec universe Aztec priests are an example of
specialization. The priests were supported by the
efforts of other people. They did not grow their
own food or make their own clothes. Priests
enjoyed power and privilege. The priests formed
part of the up ...